


called your name 'til the fever broke

by komet



Series: tell me you love me with a knife to my throat [1]
Category: Far Cry 4
Genre: Angst, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Post-Durgesh, Unhealthy Relationships, reggie & yogi have ajay's back, sabal is only mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:28:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25909615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/komet/pseuds/komet
Summary: It registered that his skin still burned faintly where Sabal had touched him.( ajay struggles coming to grips with his escape from durgesh, and he seeks comfort from an unexpected place. )
Relationships: Ajay Ghale/Sabal
Series: tell me you love me with a knife to my throat [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880359
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	called your name 'til the fever broke

_My head was warm_

_My skin was soaked_

_I called your name 'til the fever broke_

_When I awoke_

_The moon still hung_

_The night so black that the darkness_

_hummed_

_I raised myself_

_My legs were weak_

_I prayed my mind be good to me_

_An awful noise_

_Filled the air_

_I heard a scream in the woods somewhere_

  
  


It had been several hours since Sabal departed from the Ghale residence, and to his credit, he had seemed _almost_ apologetic about it. That was more than he usually was. Never mind if it made bitterness swirl in Ajay’s chest and bubble up his throat, escaping through poisonous words muttered listlessly to the ceiling above his bed. He didn’t remember what they had been, knew they didn’t matter because he’d never find the conviction to share them with Sabal anyway. Never mind it. 

Ten days. That, according to Sabal, was roughly how long he’d spent in Yuma’s dark, frigid prison where madness spread like a vicious disease. Where Ajay could hardly distinguish one moment from the next, where he wasn’t sure if it was drugs or terror or exhaustion pumping wild through his system like a freight train careening off the rails. He had to have hallucinated, had to have been hopped up on something . . . he knew what that felt like now, thanks to the two junkies living thirty, forty feet away from him. 

With a deep sigh that rattled in his chest, he sat up slowly. It was the most he’d really moved since waking, and he let out a soft groan as his stiff joints protested. His head was pounding and his body ached, though not as sharply as it might have if he _hadn’t_ just spent three days unconscious. Glancing over himself, he noted that his wounds were attended to; bullet holes wrapped and stab wounds dressed, but not much could be done for the ugly, yellowing bruises staining his skin like spilled water colors. Sabal must have done this for him. 

He had it in him to be grateful, in a ruinous kind of way. Sure, Sabal cared enough, was kind enough, to tend to him, pray by his bedside for three days straight. Anything to keep the Son of Mohan alive and fighting, right? But once that was done, once Ajay proved that he was still breathing and not too fucked up to keep going, then, well -- then Sabal had a war to get back to. That was how it worked, how it would always work, even if he put a hand on Ajay’s cheek so gently, pressed their lips together so fleetingly before he was gone. 

It registered that his skin still burned faintly where Sabal had touched him. 

Ajay huffed a noise of frustration as he dug the heels of his palms into his closed eyes, pressing hard enough and long enough to see bursts of colors in the darkness. Only, in a brief but horrifically overwhelming flash, it wasn’t just colors; it was the mournful howl of wind high in the mountains, shades of white and grey and blood red, cell bars rattling and prisoners shrieking and the chittering of something _evil_ echoing through cave walls, a black-eyed demon pouncing on him, driving a blade into his flesh over and over until --

He shuddered back to life, eyes opening and panic whistling through him like a rocket as the darkness failed to fade right away, leaving him hopelessly praying that he wasn’t waking right back up in his cell again. Chest heaving and hands shaking slightly, Ajay reeled with nausea as the black spots faded from his vision and left him in his bed, in his home. Safe. Alone.

“Fuck,” Ajay sighed out uselessly, pushing his hands through his hair and gripping tight as his heart started to quiet down, feel less like a battering ram threatening to shatter his ribs. 

He had to get up, get moving, shake off the exhaustion clinging to his bones. Every time he closed his eyes, every time he submerged into that inky depth of _nothing_ , he woke back up there. He couldn’t go under, couldn’t sleep for a second until he was sure that this was real. 

_Yogi and Reggie,_ his mind supplied quickly, like it was being jumpstarted. They could tell him, could help him. Sabal was his next thought, because he didn’t like the two of them. Told Ajay that once, actually; hissed that Mohan wouldn’t have wanted two junkies living on his land. 

_Oh, well,_ Ajay thought, because it wasn’t up to Sabal. His house, his land (because it _was_ his, had _been_ his since Mohan died), seemed to be the one part of Ajay’s life that Sabal couldn’t have for himself. 

By the time Ajay pushed his front door open, he was steadier on his feet. He did, however, squint and hold a hand out, shielding himself from the bright sun that had hid so cruelly from him up in the North. He could hardly blame it, really; given the choice, he wouldn’t have laid eyes on Durgesh Prison either. 

He made the short trek down the path and up the stairs to the dark tent, which always had some sort of _smell_ wafting off of it. Seemed to be kush this time. Honestly, it was downright comforting right now. 

As it always seemed to go, Ajay walked in on the two of them bickering in some fashion. It was funny, he mused to himself briefly. Walking in on one Sabal and Amita’s spats always felt like walking into a trolley station and standing around until one of them turned and told him to pull the lever; with _these_ two, it just meant friendly conversation at the occasional expense of having a needle jammed into him. Christ, he’d pick the latter any day. 

“No, no, no,” Yogi was insisting, hands gesturing flippantly and creating a trail of smoke with the joint between his fingers, “‘course he’s not dead. Well -- okay, maybe. That green-eyed bugger probably _would_ sit an’ stare at his corpse for three days...” 

“Left this morning, didn’t he? Maybe he hadn’t noticed ‘til just today that his champion was dead over all that chanting and praying,” Reggie mused in return, lounging so far across a beanbag that his head’s nearly touching the ground. 

“He--”

“Wouldn’t appreciate that much,” Ajay cut in loudly, before the debate over his own mortality could continue much further. He didn’t quite know if he should be flattered in some weird way, that they were even talking about it. 

The two of them visibly startled at the sound of his voice, up on their feet in a flash with overlapping exclamations of surprise, of _bloody hell_ and other expletives.

Yogi laughed, glanced between Reggie and Ajay as he prattled, “Well, I’ll be damned then! Christ, mate, we thought you was never comin’ out of that house, with the way that high and mighty fucker was prowling around. Right _wanker_ , that one is.”

“Yeah, yeah, we saw him bring you in a couple days ago, see, went to go and check on you,” Reggie continued for him, and Yogi nodded, waving his cigarette about in affirmation.

“Shoulda seen the look he gave us! Swear, it was like he was gonna shoot us dead with his bloody eyeballs. I’ll say, he does have some nice eyes, though, you know,” Yogi added thoughtfully, looking over at Reggie.

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Ajay said before Reggie could give his undoubtedly indispensable input, raising his hands. He was well enough aware about all of this; about Sabal, his eyes and his glare, how he seemed to pick and choose when to be wildly territorial over Ajay, how goddamn scary he could be even when he was just _standing_ there. Yeah, he was familiar with all of that and then some. 

“Well then, Mr. Ghale!” hummed Reggie instead, looking behind him in a quick circle, seeming to be searching for something. “What’s happened to you? Did you come for a little kick, eh? ‘Cause I tell you, mate, we’ve cooked up somethin’ real spicy since you been gone,” he said, evidently finding what he was looking for. He turned back to Ajay with another syringe, already moving toward him with it. 

Like the crack of a whip, a tremor of anxiety jolted through Ajay, and he immediately staggered back at the same moment as he snapped out an urgent, “No!” He didn’t manage to keep the panic, the unfettered alarm out of his voice, and perhaps that was what stunned the pair into silence. Immediately, the back of his neck burned with shame and discomfort and he glanced off, scrambling to collect the right words to explain himself. 

“No, I didn’t come for that,” he amended quickly, quieter and flatter. “Look, I . . . I was up north. In Yuma’s prison. Uh, Durgesh, they called it. The other shit doesn’t matter, but they had me on some kind of drugs. Hallucinogens, I think, or maybe sedatives or -- something, I don’t know.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to feel a little bit bigger despite the fact that he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the floor. “I just need to know that, that I’m awake, I guess. That it’s out of my system.” _That this is real,_ he didn’t say, because that felt maybe just a little too pathetic. 

There was silence for what felt like an hour, but couldn’t have been more than three seconds. Ajay felt like he was under scrutiny, being pitied and judged. And he shouldn’t have, and he knew that, because sometimes it felt like these two were the only people in the entire country who didn’t _expect_ anything of him. Still, he felt so goddamned small, like he was letting everyone down. The Golden Path, Kyrat . . . Sabal. Sabal, who wasn’t here, who was never here. _That Sabal?_ he asked himself ruefully, regretted it an instant later. 

“Right then,” Yogi said, a little softer, but to his credit he didn’t sound like he felt _sorry_ for Ajay, which was the last fucking thing he wanted. It made him relax, lose a bit of that tension wound up tightly in his muscles, finally pick his gaze up. “Yeah, mate, we can do that. Masters of the trade, we are.” Yogi ended the sentence by backhanding Reggie in the chest expectantly. 

Reggie nodded immediately, shoving the needle back into his pocket in a clumsy hurry. “Oh, yeah, of course we can. Proper professionals right here.”

And it was that simple. Ajay asked for help, and so they helped him. There was no judgment, no _be strong, Son of Mohan_ , no expectation for something in return. For the first time in a while, he let himself realize how _fucked_ that was. He put up with too much shit, didn’t he?

Later, when he crawled into bed -- his own, because he let Reggie and Yogi talk him into sticking around with them for the day, because _that sanctimonious twat can wait_ \-- he fell to sleep assured that he’d wake up right back here again. That, rather than the insight granted by incense or the guidance bestowed by the great Kyra, was a blessing that Ajay could give himself to. 

When he finally sank into darkness, he dreamed of glittering green eyes and the smell of fresh blood dripping off a tiger’s claws. 


End file.
